The designer stood next to a rail full of t-shirts, in all colours and sizes. Wearing jeans, a checked shirt and baseball cap, he could have been the bloke who brought the t-shirts in. Or a part-time musician. Or a sign painter. He was, in fact, all of those things. He was also Head of Graphics at Cheltenham's success story, the clothing retailer Superdry. Richy had been responsible for every single logo and design that appeared across the clothing range since its inception. “How do you draw the designs,” I asked. “With paper,” he said. “And a pencil.”
Superdry's story is about a couple of blokes and a minor epiphany that inspired a clothing brand, marrying Eastern graphics and lingo with classic fashion. Richy was one of the first on board, and saw the company grow from a back room to a global brand.
As I write this, in a cafe on Denmark Street in London, a man walks past with a notebook in his hand. Around the notebook is an elastic band, perfectly tensioned using the laws of physics to hold the pages together without being too taut to remove. In much the same way, when the digital dust settles we will all get on with being human, without thinking too much about the technologies that surround us. Who knows, if we are still around, some of us might smile, wryly, in the knowledge that computers can finally recognise the subtlety.
A bit like a piece of paper. And a pencil.